Category: Epistles – Is his letter to our church?

Epistles ἐπιστολή or Letters

I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read to all the holy brethren.

Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians

FEATURED SERIES

JUNE 2024 – 2025 —

1 CORINTHIANS

First letter after ACTS of the Apostles:

Epistle of Paul to the Romans Church

Letters – Is he writing to me?
The short answer: YES.

In their epistles or 1st century church letters the Apostles and other men sent out by Jesus build up the saints [small – ‘s’] or members of local first century churches.

A Disciple or other witness of JESUS would write it. Messengers then delivered these church letters to many isolated worshipers.

Followers of Jesus Christ receive these letters as a major encouragement to their personal faith. Then leaders read them to worshipers of their church.

Although the Epistles 0r Letters to the Church were originally written to churches of the first century,

Romans through Jude will seem like letters to your 21st century church.

What do Peter, Paul, John and others tell us we must do?
Is he talking about an issue in your 21st c. church as well?
How does the writer’s advice, warning, or encouragement to the 1st c. believers apply to you as well
Is the writer of this letter talking about something you need to address in your 21st century ‘christian’ life?

Contemporary Application of the Letters (Epistles)

Most New Testament writers take on specific issues confronting faithful followers of Jesus Christ. These same issues continue to confront believers until the Lord’s coming again in these last days.

Certainly Christ our Lord will come again to those God has chosen for eternal life.

Believers currently suffer more than most of you who know Christ in your local church can imagine.

In other lands Christians continue to suffer by the hand of the ungodly.
Go into all the world

A 21st century Common Era church can see and hear nearly any atrocity of man or artificial imagination of sinful man’s mind, yet ‘christians‘ dare not speak of any absolute truth of the Lord God or talk of JESUS CHRIST.

Will YOU comment on Scripture and share the Gospel?

I invite you to read the inspired word of Scripture written in these LETTTERS TO THE CHURCH.

YES, He IS writing to YOU.

Beloved brother or sister in Christ Jesus,

Will you read this ‘CHURCH LETTER’ and talk of JSUS through your comment, sharing and email to me about this ‘Letter to you?”

Roger@talkofJesus.com

for our God is a consuming fire

Hebrews 12:18 For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them.

22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant…

25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.

For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.

26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”

… thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.

How much reverence and awe do you have for God Almighty?

Do you, dear believer, sometimes fail to remember in fear and trembling the Power of the risen Lord, Christ Jesus?

(It is no wonder that Jesus greeted fearful Apostles with the assurance: “Peace.”)

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. – Hebrews 10:21

The Disciples finally realized that Jesus had not established God’s Kingdom in Jerusalem at the time He entered its gates prior to His crucifixion; yet the Apostles knew that Jesus will return on the clouds as Judge of the Heavens and earth!

Prior to becoming Disciples of Jesus, some were disciples of John the Baptist who had preached:

Matthew 3:

10 Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

If the burning fire of the conquering Christ was prepared by John; if the burning fire of the conquering Jesus was prepared by the Cross; if the Judgment and Kingdom were close at hand; then how much nearer now? You with ears to hear, hear.

Jesus’ Disciples wanted to know when, but the Lord would not reveal it. Never-the-less as Jesus rose into the clouds promising His return, the Disciples were filled with awe and reverence for the risen Son of Man.

Well they knew all of what our Lord Jesus had warned and cautioned:

John 15:6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.

Luke 24:51 While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 53 and were continually in the temple blessing God.

May 13, 2014
A Love Letter from John

1 John 2: My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

But if anyone does sin,we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Beloved brother, beloved sister in Christ: you are going to sin. I do.

We continue to need Christ as our advocate every day of our mortal lives.

2 He is the propitiation [the means of appeasing the deserved wrath of God] for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments.

We know that we know Jesus: not only knowledge, but an intimate knowledge and personal relationship with Jesus as our Lord.

4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.

By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

The New Commandment

7 Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning.

The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

Hear this now of God’s unfailing love for us. Discern which brother and what sister now lives in the light. Understand who hides in the lies of the darkness and remains a slave of the sins of the world.

9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.

10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.

11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes…

We may not hate another of the family of Christ Jesus. For all who are saved are filled with His light. In us can be NO darkness at all.

Do Not Love the World

15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires [lust], but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

1 John 3: See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.

The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

5 You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.

7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.

10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

Love One Another

11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another...

18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

The Apostle John, who with the Holy Spirit is also author of the Gospel of John, writes to the church of the high importance of the love of Christ Jesus for us.

Do you believe? Do you know how much God has loved us from the beginning?

For God sacrificed His Only Son on a Cross for you and for me.

Will you become His righteousness?

Dearly beloved, our Bridegroom sends you His love.

April 26, 2014
Is Your Faith Futile?

If in Christ we have hoped in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

1 Corinthians 15:19

Walk up to an unbeliever and tell them, ‘Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.’

What will they think? What will they say?

Will an unbeliever have hope in the resurrection? It is an issue that Paul addresses in writing to the church at Corinth.

We have just celebrated ‘Resurrection Sunday,’ which the world knows as Easter from ‘traditions;’ however Paul addressed the same questions one might ask you: questions like, ‘Is your faith futile?’

Isn’t your faith in the resurrection of a man from the dead (Jesus OR you or me…) rather useless and impractical?

In a word, NO. Paul’s missing question (for unbelievers) would be:

Do you believe in God?

(Remember that Paul is writing to the church. We believe in God. Right?

IF yes; then all things are possible with God. [Matthew 19:26, Mark 9:23, Mark 10:27]

The Resurrection of the Dead

1 Corinthians 15 (English Standard Version)

12 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

So IF you believe in God, AND IF you believe the Bible is God’s word; do you believe that Jesus Christ is raised from the dead?

13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.

STOP here for a moment. Do you believe in God? YES. Do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God? NO.

(This is what some believe who claim God, but refuse to believe that God would send his only Son to the Cross as a living, human sacrifice for your sins and for mine.) Here is what unbelievers (and some with false claims as christians believe:

NO, God created man to live and die. Live for this day as God would wish.

NO judgment, NO hell, no accountability for sin beyond the grave… WE believe in a God of history, but not a God of the present (or of our future). We may believe in a Jesus of history, too. But our soul dies with our body. No resurrection.

Paul goes on about the gospel (Good News), as if it too were a lie.

15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.

17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

It always comes back to that issue of SIN, doesn’t it?

Does GOD require a sacrifice for sin? Shall a mere man suffer consequence for sin at the hand of God?

Is God just? OR is God merciful to all (with justice for none)?

IF there is NO resurrection and NO eternal life; THEN life has no more meaning than a measurement of a man’s time and death no more meaning than the end of a meaningless life.

18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Is there no difference in the soul of a Christian and the soul of one who will not believe God?

Do the dead lie in the ground with lifeless souls rotting with bones and flesh?

OR

Does the soul find rest? Does the soul find sleep? (While the seed of flesh and blood waits in the ground for the germination of new Life of the resurrection?

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

And now Paul refers to our sin, for which Christ paid the ransom of His Life on the Cross.

21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

Yes, the Resurrection of Christ Jesus is Good News! He IS the Lord over life, as He IS the Lord over death. The Cross would not be necessary without sin; as the resurrection would not be possible without Christ.

Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

HE IS RISEN! Our faith in Christ Jesus as our Lord stands on the proof and evidence of Scripture. Our faith in the resurrection is not in vain; for we are not our flesh and bones, but living souls: born again in Christ Jesus our risen Lord!

53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58 Therefore, my beloved brothers (and beloved sisters in the Lord), be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

April 21, 2014